Part 6: The Waystation

Lorna emerged from the plain hallway into a laboratory of some sort, though clearly not one meant for healing. Metal tables and lab desks crowded the room, and the air stank of alcohol and burned Arcane residue.

Along the left wall stood a row of man-sized glass vats. Clouded fluid streaked their insides, and narrow tubes hung from brass fittings near the top. Beds had been arranged beside them with the same care she had seen in the wagon: straps cleaned, sheets folded, trays aligned.

Lorna touched the nearest vat. It vibrated, and she snatched her hand away.

She moved to the nearest desk. Clinic forms and medical tools covered most of it, but a stack of leather folders caught her attention. Lorna opened one and found lists of names marked with dates, affiliations, and lineage notes.

"Family histories?"

She opened another, then another. Families that worshipped the True. Old Metharadan houses. Converts who had taken the Mark of the Six after the Empire came.

These weren't records to investigate the sickness. They were selection lists.

At the next desk, Franz’s personal ledger sat arranged neatly beside several instruments. His writing was exact and elegant, with no emotion behind it. Just columns and conclusions.

The severe responses were strongest in dual-aligned subjects.

Lorna read farther. Franz had tracked dates of Marking against family worship. He noted which prisoners still prayed to the True, which denied it, which had children, and which responded to something labeled Harmonization. She set the ledger down, face grim, then a metallic gleam caught her attention.

A brass machine loomed in the center of the room. White rods glowed in housings around its frame, with conduits feeding into a central sphere of three metal rings. Beyond it, restraints had been bolted to the wall. Dark stains marked the floor beneath them.

Dragging her finger across the machine's console, she knew immediately—this was the source of Lilith's terror.